Introduction
Remember when you just turned on your music and zoned out? Just dreaming of another world, another life you could have? Suddenly, your phone dies and you realize you’ve been zoned out for the past six hours.
Welcome to the land of maladaptive daydreaming, the fantasy land that we can’t escape. You don’t really realize you’re suffering from maladaptive daydreaming until you find an article like this. In my case, I randomly was googling stuff and saw a search result called “maladaptive daydreaming”
“I Probably Don’t Have This”
I said that to myself before deciding to click on it, however, it resulted in describing me perfectly. So, let’s see how well you get described by this form of daydreaming.
Understanding Maladaptive Daydreaming
According to Cleveland Clinic, the clinical definition of this type of daydreaming is “Maladaptive Daydreaming is a behavior where a person spends an excessive amount of time daydreaming, often becoming immersed in their imagination“. This basically means that you spend hours just day dreaming, and get so immersed into your imagination you can’t really tell what’s really anymore.
Now there’s an important difference to make between maladaptive and normal daydreaming. Everyone daydreams, hell I was daydreaming of writing this blog while I was showering. However, regular daydreaming is easy to snap out of, and it usually doesn’t last more than 20 minutes. On the other hand, maladaptive daydreaming is really hard to get out of, and it can last hours.
Some of the conditions common with Maladaptive Daydreaming include
- ADHD
- Anxiety disorders
- Some types of depression
- Dissacioative disorders
- OCd
Now if you suffer from maladaptive daydreaming, you don’t necessarily have to have any of these. So, don’t get scared you have depression, these are just some problems linked to this type of daydreaming.
That’s Cool and All, but How does it Affect Me?
Obviously, maladaptive daydreaming is bad and all, but how does it affect my everyday life. First of all, you will lose a lot of productive time just daydreaming about whatever random fantasy you want to do. I often would daydream about the work that I was procrastinating on by daydreaming.
Maladaptive daydreaming also lowers your focus since, obviously, you’ll be focused on your daydream instead of your work. Furthermore, even while talking to your loved ones you can be unfocused and thinking about being the president of the US.
Maladaptive daydreaming also wrecks your mental health since you’ll always be thinking of another life. These other lives we think about are often much better than ours, so it can just make us sad after we daydream.
Is regaining control of my daydreaming even possible?
Regaining control over your daydreaming is difficult, and it is a slow process. However, with due time, you’ll be able to regain control over your time and energy and beat maladaptive daydreaming. This is really important since the more you maladaptively daydream, the harder it gets to beat
Let’s say you’ve been doing for 5 years, that’s much harder to break instead of if you did it for 2 years. So, the quicker we address this problem, the faster you’ll be able to break it.
The Link Between Daydreaming and Decreased Productivity
As I talked about earlier, maladaptive daydreaming can absolutely destroy your productivity. I wasn’t joking when I said I would daydream about the work I had to do instead of daydreaming. The biggest problem with maladaptive daydreaming is how much time it absolutely kills in your day.
At the very least, one daydreaming session will last about 1 hour. Meaning you just lost out on 1 hour out of your 24 everyday. Obviously, one hour of doing nothing will lead to missed deadlines and scattered thoughts since you’ll often forget about deadlines. Your thoughts will always be everywhere since your mind is everywhere with these daydreaming thoughts
How Do I Know if I’m Suffering?
Studies show that maladaptive daydreaming is horrible for your health as it can lower your memory retention, your attention span, and overall can destroy your cognitive function. Obviously, all of these things are bad, but how can I tell if I’m suffering from maladaptive daydreaming.
It’s actually much simpler than you think to tell if you have maladaptive daydreaming. If you consistently spend your time sitting around, walking around, or doing anything while just thinking of another life vividly, then you probably have maladaptive daydreaming. Cleveland Clinic goes much more in-depth into the symptoms, however, if you’ve resonated with this blog so far, you most likely have maladaptive daydreaming.
There’s no official diagnosis for it, you can see a therapist if you want an official way to see if you have maladaptive daydreaming. However, there is this 16 question survey about whether you have maladaptive daydreaming or not. It’s not an official diagnosis, but it’s pretty accurate.
Practical Tips to Manage and Prevent Maladaptive Daydreaming
Before I get into the tips to prevent maladaptive daydreaming, I need to put this out into the world. You need to realize that this is a long journey, and that you can’t minimize your daydreaming immediately. Have the mindset that this is for your future self, and that it’ll take time, but will be worth it in the end.
There are two methods to overcoming this problem. You have the clinical methods, or the methods you can conduct by yourself at home. The clinical methods include anti-anxiety/anti-depressant medication, and psychotherapy with a psychologist. However, you usually need to have a mental disorder associated with maladaptive daydreaming to get these treatments.
The treatments anyone can do at home to prevent the unhealth daydreaming includes
- Improving your sleep
- Exercising daily and having a healthy diet
- Using stress reduction techniques
- Getting sunlight exposure
- Support from your friends and family
- Breathing exercises (e.g,. Meditation)
Now these habits are really good in preventing the daydreaming in general. However, these habits are also overall useful in every aspect of your life, and can help your productivity in other ways.
Using Productivity Hacks to Reduce Daydreaming
Obviously, to help boost your productivity, all the productivity hacks work in reducing your maladaptive daydreaming. This includes habit trackers, recognizing your habit cues, and entering a flow state with deep work.
Focus in on recognizing your cues, for me, whenever I listen to certain types of music, I start daydreaming immediately. For most of you, music is a massive part of your daydreaming, so recognizing what music triggers you can minimize your daydreaming immediately. Sometimes, I go a whole day without music just so I can decrease the chance of daydreaming.
Now, we have the hardest but most effective method that I like to call “thought-stopping“. Thought-stopping is very similar to meditation, and those who meditate often will be much more equipped to using this method. So, if you’re not meditating already, it’s time to learn.
Basically, in the middle of your daydreaming session, you need to recognize that you’re in the middle of a dream. This is difficult, as then you have to bring your mind back to the present moment and escape the fantasy land you’re in. The best way to bring your mind to the present is to just focus on your breath, and just keep focusing on it until you’ve left your “daydreaming mode”
Building a Productive Mindset: Replacing Daydreaming with Action
I want you to do everything I say in this section right now. Not later, right now, we’re fixing the daydreaming today
First of all, I would set a clear goal on your daydreaming For example, you can say that for this week you want to daydream for less than 2 hours everyday. Then, you keep reducing this number every week until you’re at a healthy amount of daydreaming.
Secondly, you need to recognize what environment you daydream the most in. For example, if I daydream a lot in my room, then I’ll want to spend as much time outside my room as possible in order to reduce the urge. Eventually, after you get much better are preventing daydreaming, you can spend the regular amount of time in your room since you’ll be able to beat your urges.
Thirdly, you’ll want to cultivate a mindset that focuses on actions in the present over fantasy. The best way to do this is to do more stuff in the present, so that you’ll care less in the fantasy. For example, if you are really buff and strong in your daydreaming, then you should start going to the gym so that you won’t dream about being buff, you’ll actually be buff
Conclusion
Maladaptive daydreaming is a problem you didn’t know you suffered from. It can wreck your mental health, productivity, focus, you name it. However, it is possible to beat despite the long road you have to take to do so. Meditation, getting enough sleep, productivity hacks, and gaining a proper mindset can all help in destroying maladaptive daydreaming. However, you have to know that beating the daydreaming is only possible through action, so remember that
Nothing changes if nothing changes
